


Baptism by Poisonous Fire

by navaan



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Noir
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, First Kiss, Hero Worship, M/M, Pining Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Rescue Missions, Super Soldier Serum, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-05 11:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15170087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Steve Rogers is the new Marvels writer – or he was supposed to be. He isn't sure yet that he'll survive the day. Chances seem slim for himself and his hero, Tony Stark.





	Baptism by Poisonous Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Furiael](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Furiael/gifts).



> Thank you to pazithi for the beta!!

The needle was cold when it pierced his flesh. For a moment there was nothing. Then the pressure built and suddenly liquid fire was crawling through his veins as the poison spread, searing him from the inside.

“Leave him alone,” Stark cried out. “He's just a kid from Brooklyn. Your business is with me.”

Strucker ignored him as if at the moment poor frail Steve was his only concern – and not Tony Stark, the hero of Marvels, the thorn in Hydra's side. It would have been flattering if Steve hadn't been so terrified, if the pain wouldn't be so bad that it was hard to even concentrate on what was going on. He gasped and tried to curl up, but Tony was there.

The man he admired - _adored_ \- was standing right there and he was watching everything.

_I have to be brave. Oh god, let me be brave. Don't let me be a coward in his eyes._

Steve gnashed his teeth against the pain. The doctor who'd injected him with the poison looked at him with something that came very close to compassion. The man probably knew what was in store for him. His guts were on fire. His blood was boiling. Even his bones ached – as they were falling apart.

“Why did you do that?” Tony asked. “He's just a...”

Finally Strucker turned his half burned face – a disfigurement he blamed Stark for – towards his true nemesis. “ _Ja_ ,” he nodded and added: “You are right, Mr. Stark. He is _just_. Your Miss Potts at least knew how to survive. This one won't survive even your first adventure. That's on you for picking a man who's not up for the task.”

“Strucker!” Tony bellowed and he fought in his bonds to get free, but there were too many green-clad guards surrounding him, ready to punch him into submission, ready to hold him down or drag him away – and the Iron Man was out of reach. There was no way that Tony would be able to free himself. The knowledge that there was nothing Tony could do to save Steve settled into him like a soothing chunk of ice, holding the bone-melting fire of the pain at bay. 

What did matter? _Tony_ mattered. He was the one who needed to get away. He was the one Hydra wanted.

Steve was inconsequential. He was only a one time visitor in the adventures of the hero.

Between clenched teeth, Steve hissed: “Mr. Stark, don't worry about me. Get out if you...”

“Don't worry,” Strucker assured Steve, cutting him off before he could say more. “He won't die. Another syringe has been waiting for him for a long time. It had his name written all over it since before his father died.”

Tony growled, but by now two guards had him nearly inside the door. They were dragging him away. His blue eyes were searching Steve's. “Don't give up, Steve. I'll come for you.”

Cold and shivering despite the fire in his veins, Steve held his gaze. _Get out_ , he wanted to shout. _Don't come back for me. Get Iron Man. Flee. Don't let them get to you. We need you. I always needed you._

“Get him to his cell,” Strucker order and calmly watched as Stark was dragged away and followed at a sedate and eerily calm pace. When Tony had been pulled out of sight Strucker threw one final glance at Steve, who was barely coping with the pain now. It felt like his body was melting into a puddle of blood and pain. The fire was eating him alive. 

A guard stepped up pointing his gun at Steve's head. 

“Nein,” Strucker ordered. “Lass ihn krepieren. Zu schade für die Kugel.”*

He strode away to the door through which they'd dragged Tony. 

“Beendet das Expriment, wenn as sein muss. Dann werdet ihn los.”*

The doctor by Steve's side nodded and Strucker went.

“What does that even mean?” Steve hissed, between hitched breaths. “What experiment?”

“New serum,” the doctor said in accented German. “Fails every time. Makes monsters sometimes.”

“Like the Zemo formula?” Fear ate at his insides with the same intensity as the toxin. Was he losing his mind? Was he being turned into someone else? Wasn't he simply dying? 

_Tony_ , he thought. _Someone needs to stop what they're doing to Tony._

But instead Steve's restrains fell away and the guards gripped him. 

“Throw him into the incinerator,” the doctor said, sounding clinical and uncaring, but something in his eyes again spoke of unstated compassion. 

None of it mattered though. Steve was dragged away, and in too much pain to even protest.

* * *

_The fire eats at him. The dark cell is an oven. He breathes acid, gas. It's hot. The walls are thick. A light goes on and off. Radiation. Heat. Darkness. Blinding light. The smell of burned flesh, blood and sweat. He's melting. Molten. Dead. Breathing._

_The thought of Tony keeps his heart beating, his breathing from fading out._

_If Tony can survive all he does every day with the mechanical heart, you can dam well survive with your frailty, Rogers. Man up. You're not well enough to be a soldier, but Stark saw something in you. He let you take over as his chronicler. Don't be a disappointment._

_Make it count._

_And Stark had just started to warm to him._

_To smile that smile at him._

_To make him hope there was more to be gained than adventure._

_And here he is._

_Nothing more than ashes._

* * *

He heard voices. A boot ungently nudged his shoulder.

“Tot,” someone stated. (Dead)

“Leave him,” someone else said. “No use.”

* * *

He woke in stages still inside the dark locked room that had been meant as his grave. The light wasn't glowing anymore and his body was no longer burning like an inferno was trying to melt its way through his skin.

His mind was clear.

Clearer than ever.

He had to get out and get Tony before the Germans could move him to a different location; before they could poison Tony with the serum that had turned his father into Zemo. 

How long had he been here?

Was he too late already?

He dragged himself up, fell back, sitting with his legs pulled up. Something was still off. Something was wrong. All his limbs felt like they were in the wrong place. He tried to get up and moved uncertainly like a newborn fawn standing on its legs for the first time. The room spun. The ceiling was too close.

_Tony._

He focused...

...stumbled towards the door he'd been brought in through. 

It took him a hard pull and a desperate push and suddenly he was holding the door, ripped from its heavy metal hinges. He stared, at the hinges, the door, the handle that fell into dust under his hands.

Hands, strong and long-fingered and strange. Weird like a stranger's.

The fingers weren't his. His and yet wrong.

He leaned the door carefully against the wall before stumbling out.

Nobody was in the control room, but Steve caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the glass of the observation deck. He froze.

That wasn't him.

How could that be him?

Shocked he fell to his knees, shivering.

What the hell?

But his mind didn't stop racing.

He'd ripped a heavy metal door open with his bare hands. He could feel the power in his muscles.

And somewhere in this prison was Tony Stark, in need of help.

Steve needed a plan.

Perhaps, unwittingly, the enemy had provided him with one.

Himself.

* * *

Taking out the guards was too easy. He stumbled over his own feet at first – no shoes, his clothes suddenly a few sizes too small, his reach too wide. His shirt was in tatters, but his fist knew how to throw a punch and his legs knew how to jump and kick and run.

And he ran, right through the guards.

Where else would Tony be if not in the most heavily guarded part of the building?

Screams and gunshots followed him, but could also be heard from the opposite side of the corridor. He sped up, hurried towards the fighting and away from his pursuers. Rounding the next corner he nearly collided into another runner. He recognized the hair and clothes, and before Tony Stark could hit the stone wall hard, he grabbed him by the arm to break his fall. They ended up with Tony backed against the wall, Steve bracing his arms on either side of him, close enough to kiss.

“Who the hell are you?”

Steve grabbed him by the wrist. “Come with me,” he said, suddenly sure he knew where to go and how to get there. He'd always been good with memorizing details, mapping locations in his head, with planning ahead and finding solutions. Now his body was finally able to keep up with it.

Three soldiers rounded the corner, guns at the ready, in pursuit of their escaped prisoner.

It took Steve three steps to be between them, two punches and the well-aimed manipulation of one enemy rifle hilt to take them all down.

Tony stared at him, open-mouthed. Steve turned back to him, breathing calmly. 

How did you explain that you had been melted down and put back together into the person you always wanted to be? 

Taxing him, gauging Tony watched him and Steve tried to be careful as he approached. “I am... Tony, I am...”

How was he supposed to explain when he didn't understand, when he had trouble believing it?

“Steve,” Tony whispered, disbelief bleeding from every fiber of his body. 

Steve expected questions or an argument they didn't have time for. He was ready to protest and pull Tony along if he had to, but suddenly his arms were full of a quietly chuckling Marvels hero. “I thought you were dead. I thought I had...” And dry, chafed lips pressed against Steve's without warning and his own hands came up to settle at Tony's shoulders. Desperate, filled with a different, less lethal kind of fire Steve kiss back, drinking from a well he'd yearned for way too long.

Then the loud approach of more steps made both of them pull away.

“I don't understand, how...?”

“I'm afraid I have no answers, Mr. Stark.”

Tony grabbed his elbow this time. “We'll find them together. But first let's get out of here, my knight in shining armor.”

Steve felt himself blush, but he was ready to pick Tony up like a princess who'd been freed from her tower and run for his life.

This was what it was like to be in a Marvels adventure – and be the hero.

It looked like Steve even had chances with the man.

They ran together, his muscles stretching, as he became more and more familiar with his new body with every step and movement. A laugh escaped him and beside him, Tony answered with a delighted chuckle, devil-may-care in the light of bullets being sent their way.

Despite the circumstances – running beside Tony Stark, their fingers brushing like that of partners of long years after they'd only know each other for less than a month, able to keep up and hold his own – it was like Steve's every dream had come true.

And he had the enemy to thank for it.

He rather hoped he would get the chance to make them regret it.

And he had the enemy to thank for it.

Now he could fight side by side with Iron Man.

Hydra did not stand a chance.

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me for fic updates on [tumblr](https://navaanwrites.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/navaanwrites). This fic has a post on the tumblr [here](https://navaanwrites.tumblr.com/post/176061410414/fanfiction-noir-baptism-by-poisonous-fire) in case you want to share it. It also has a page on my [Dreamwidth](https://navaan.dreamwidth.org/616407.html).
> 
> German translated:  
> "Nein. Lass ihn krepieren. Zu schade für die Kugel.” - No, let him die. He's not worth the bullet.  
> “Beendet das Expriment, wenn as sein muss. Dann werdet ihn los.” - Finish the experiment if you have to. Then dispose of him.


End file.
